To bee or not to bee
been there done that.
World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
31–40 of 46 posts
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really think we can create a greater extinction event than the ones the insects have survived? And yes, that includes some serious climate changes.
All-out nuclear war?
This used to worry me too, but I read this article [1] and it cheered me up! Sure, most of civilisation would likely crumble if centres of production and distribution were nuked and vast tracts of the world would be irradiated, but it's by no means an ELE.
1: https://www.quora.com/In-a-total-nuclear-exchange-where-the-...
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#33What is it about this particular environment that allows this mutation (i.e., larger in size) to survive here, but no where else in the world? Also, in theory, could it be even larger, or is there some limit to how large a bee could be?
Maybe related to Island Giganticism, and also Island Dwarfism (foster's rule).
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
A nuclear war can only be fought to the point where nobody has the capacity to keep fighting. You can't actually obliterate the planet. The global climate would be altered but it wouldn't be close to the worst the earth has seen. Insects, plants, rodents, and humans will all almost certainly survive a nuclear war. Animals in the wild are largely unaffected by high levels of background radiation because they don't liv…
AI could keep fighting, and replicating more weapons, long after humans are dead.
You mean futuristic AI, like Skynet?
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#35it would probably hurt like hell to be stung by it
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#36it would probably hurt like hell to be stung by it
And its size is comparable to a domestic pussycat.
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#37it would probably hurt like hell to be stung by it
And its size is comparable to a domestic pussycat.
Ohhh, you haven't seen nothing until you've seen the Asian giant hornet. Nearly two inches long, with a quarter-inch-long stinger that's gauranteed to cause immense pain, and may kill you even if you're not allergic. These insects are as vicious as they are huge. If just one invades a honeybee hive, it turns the hive into an insect-scale scene from Attack on Titan, forcing its way in through the entrance, slaughtering bees left and right with one snip from its mandibles. European honeybees have no defense, but Japanese honeybees can defeat a single hornet by surrounding it with a ball of bees which vibrate their wings until the hornet overheats and dies -- and even then many bees inside the ball will be lost. If the single scout hornet makes it out alive, it will return -- with friends. Even a hive of tens of thousands of bees cannot mount an effective defense against just a few hornets, and the hornets will lay waste to the colony in a matter of hours.
Nature is a merciless bitch, and some of her creatures are downright horrifying.
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#38Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#39Alternate title: "Bee finally declared winner of world's longest running game of hide and seek!"
Re: World's largest bee ‘rediscovered’ after 38 years
#40I've seen carpenter bees in California as big as that.